Glacier Bay – Juneau Round Trip

A 10-day/9-night exploration of Glacier Bay National Park. Bears, sea otters, mountain goats, humpback whales, sea lions, puffins and grey wolves are a few of the animals frequently viewed in Glacier Bay. We will visit four tidewater glaciers and kayak up streams and along meadows where we may see bears foraging for sedges and roots as they emerge from hibernation.

“The very thought of this Alaska garden is a joyful exhilaration. Out of all the cold darkness and glacial crushing and grinding comes this warm, abounding beauty and life to teach us that what we in our faithless ignorance and fear call destruction is creation finer and finer.” -John Muir, Travels in Alaska: Glacier Bay

Exploring Glacier Bay

Glacier Bay: Springtime Emergence

Fjord Landscapes

Humpback Whales

Orcas

Puffins

Mountain Goats

Glaciers

Rugged, Natural Beauty

Imagine Glacier Bay as John Muir saw it in 1899, as a member of the legendary Harriman Expedition – without the cruise ships, the guidebooks, and interpretive signs that define the modern visitor’s experience.

Aboard the Catalyst, our 75-foot vintage wooden boat, we’ll have the chance to see this spectacular glacial fjord landscape in much the same way that Harriman’s scientists did. Unlike the big cruise ships, Catalyst is trim enough to explore the narrowest of fjords and shallow coastal waters. She carries twelve passengers and a crew of four in superb comfort – the perfect size for a voyage such as ours. Best of all, Catalyst carries six double and 2 single sea kayaks along with a motorized inflatable to enable exploration both far and wide. For those who take paddle in hand, the use of sea kayaks allows a more intimate, seal’s eye view of the tidewater glaciers, inlets, islets, and estuary streams that make this coastal wilderness one of the most beautiful and biologically diverse areas in North America.

May is a magical time to be in Glacier Bay, because we have it largely to ourselves. It is us, the bears, wolves, moose and mountain goats. Our visit coincides with the first returning humpback whales, and the thousands of migrating shore and seabirds bound for Arctic nesting sites. Against a backdrop of some of the most magnificent mountains on earth, rivers of glacial ice tumble into the sea and aquamarine icebergs drift by on the tides. Responding to the boom and crash of ice at the glacier front, kittiwakes and Arctic terns swirl over the churning, welling waters in search of food. Western sandpipers and other shorebirds skitter along the shorelines, poking their bills into the food-rich mud and gravels of the intertidal zone. Rafts of harlequins, surf scoters and pigeon guillemots forage in the quiet bays before making the final push to their nesting areas. Grizzlies and black bears, recently emerged from their hibernation dens, can be seen bending the branches of black cottonwoods down to feed on the sweetly-resinous leaf buds, grazing on swards of lush sedges, and scraping succulent barnacles and mussels from rocks along the water’s edge. For the wildlife of Glacier Bay and the outer islands, this is truly a time of plenty.

As we, too, feast on abundant food and share the day’s discoveries over a glass of wine, there seems little doubt that this is one of the best ways to experience all that Southeast Alaska has to offer! While we have a planned itinerary, each trip differs slightly depending upon the time of the tidal currents, the weather conditions, wildlife viewing opportunities, and the wishes of our clients.

This itinerary is dependent on the weather and the tides and may change at the captain’s discretion

Day 1: Depart from Juneau’s Auke Bay Marina at 1:15 pm. As we head south down Gastineau Channel, we watch as the symptoms of civilization slip into our wake. Soon high rises, power lines and cruise ships are far behind us and orcas, humpbacks and rafts of seabirds are in front of us. Our first night’s anchorage is in a quiet harbor outside the borders of Glacier Bay National Park. Here we will launch kayaks and take our first paddle together in the wilderness.

Day 2: Today, as we enter Glacier Bay National Park, sea otters may lead us in. We stop in Bartlett Cove for a Park Service orientation. Following an exploration of the immediate area on foot, we cast off and head further into the bay. At Fingers Bay, the anchorage for this evening, we may see bears rooting for fresh food upon the beach and a myriad of sea birds that have flocked to the rich waterways of the park.

Day 3: Today’s cruising will lead us to beautiful Reid Inlet. Reid Glacier has recently grounded out, and provides an opportunity to walk right up to the face of a glacier. The discovery of the day might be that ice worms are real! We will also walk at the entrance of the inlet and look for remnants of a small mining claim, worked by the Ibach family, during the early 1900s.

Day 4: As we weigh anchor and head out into the morning mists rising from a mercury smooth sea, we will see bear trails winding from the ridges down to the water’s edge. At this time of year snow is still low on the flanks of the mountains, and animal trails can easily be identified. Numerous migrating birds find a short refuge alongside the waters of a retreating glacier, feasting on the abundant sea life below the water’s surface, before they fly to their summer nesting grounds. The courtship has begun, and the birds are in their fancy plumage. Nunataks, the pointy tips of mountains that escaped the rounding of glacial ice, poke their heads up over the ice fields of glistening white.

Day 5: The highlight today may be a visit to the Grand Pacific and Marjorie Glaciers, or it may be the otters that we may see as we kayak in John Hopkins Inlet; or, it may just be the particular shade of blue that the sky takes on after the sun sets late in the evening. In any case, it promises to be a day of superlatives. Kittiwakes nest along the side of the glaciers, while eagles come to rest upon the floating ice. The ice cracks and calves into the sea and hunks of dense blue ice shift and turn as they float by.

Day 6: As we continue our casual wanderings around the Bay, the geology begins to assert itself. Biological life here is so fresh. The whole area was “born” from the receding ice within the last two-hundred years. The “bones” of the place are very apparent. Recent scars and marks resulting from the glaciers’ gouge are still as fresh and crisp as they were when the ice finished its work. Watch for mountain goats to be low, feeding and sunning themselves on rocky ledges. Occasionally we see bears moving from one island to another, swimming in pursuit of fresh vegetation for their early season salad diet. There will be opportunities for either a hike or a paddle following the day’s run by boat.

Day 7: We rise to greet another day in the wilderness. We will travel the edges today, looking for Steller sea lions who haul out on small islands. These islands also host a gathering of puffins. Glacier Bay boasts a large array of quiet coves and bays, each of which plays host to a stunning variety of plants and animals. We will choose between this abundance for an anchorage for the night.

Day 8: Today we will leave Glacier Bay proper and head west down Icy Strait and enter Dundas Bay. Even less visited than Glacier Bay, Dundas Bay is home to bears, whales, otters and hoary marmots. We will anchor at the head of Dundas and explore its river estuary on foot.

Day 9: Leaving Dundas Bay, we travel eastward up Icy Strait. Watching for humpback whales, we will cruise through some of the richest fishing grounds in SE Alaska. This abundance draws harbor seals, Steller sea lions and sea birds of many species. We will anchor for the night at a small cove that provides shelter from the larger waters of Icy Strait, as well as a place to explore by foot or paddle.

Day 10: We are up early to make sure we get everyone to Juneau in time to make their connections to the outside, or to take advantage of the many attractions in the Juneau area. We will be at our mooring by noon and bid one another bon voyage until our next cruise together.

Crew Members

Name :
Bill Bailey

Position : CAPTAIN / OWNER

Bill has spent most of his life on the water. After growing up as a surfer in Southern California he moved to the Pacific Northwest where he worked as a commercial fisher in Washington and Alaska, used boats to transport materials and crews to construction sites on remote islands, and cruised extensively with his family. He has a soft place in his mind for older wooden boats, and over the years has acquired the skills required to keep them thriving. [More]

Carlos was born and raised in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, where he also went to university. Though he majored in international business, his passion is the sea. [More]

Name :
Caroline Olson

Position : NATURALIST, DECKHAND, KAYAK GUIDE

Caroline was raised in North Dakota, a mere 150 miles from the geographic center of North America. There one cannot be farther from the sea. [More]

Name :
Shane Blair

Position : ENGINEER

Shane grew up on a horse farm in Boulder County, Colorado, with a love for the land and the lifestyle, and developed a passion for early era tractors. [More]

Name :
Randy Good

Position : ENGINEER, SHIP'S CARPENTER

Randy’s fascination with boats began early, while spending time with his dad on the Chesapeake Bay and his gift for innovative construction began with tinkering at his grandfather’s workbench while growing up in Virginia. [More]

Sarah Drummond’s passion for the natural world began at an early age, and she has kept illustrated field journals since she was twelve. Sarah graduated from Maine’s College of the Atlantic, where her studies emphasized general ecology, island ecosystems, and art; and earned her M. A. in environmental studies from Prescott College, Arizona. [More]

Name :
Bernadette Castner

Position : CAPTAIN

Bernadette grew up in the Pacific Northwest and was never too far away from the water. Family summers were spent camping on the coast, or exploring the Puget Sound in the family’s 16ft skiff, fishing and discovering remote islands. [More]

Name :
Michael Neswald

Position : CHEF

Michael began his cooking career at the age of fifteen, busing tables and washing dishes at a historic steakhouse in Canyon Country, California, where he grew up. Since moving to Oregon in 2011, he immediately fell in love with the Pacific Northwest - its wild native ingredients, local farms and beautiful vineyards.

Name :
Paul Brown

Position : CAPTAIN

Paul moved to Seward, Alaska and began working on boats at the impressionable age of nineteen. A flurry of ambition awarded him with his first captain's license two-years later, and he spent the next few years working on the northern Gulf of Alaska. [More]